Are You Able to Crack It? That Forgotten Dutch Creation Which Shaped our Modern World
There are many candidates for the designation as “world’s most significant innovation.” The circular axle. The movable type. The steam engine.
According to a new book, however, that honor belongs to a automated timber mill invented by Dutchman Corneliszoon van Uitgeest during 1593.
“Prior to mechanised sawing, building a modest merchant vessel required approximately 10 lumberjacks laboring over 90 days,” writes the author. “With wind-powered sawmills, the same quantity of cut lumber could be manufactured in less than seven days.”
Owing to this speedy mechanical cutter, that converted timber into planks with almost no human effort, Dutch builders were able to construct vessels more quickly compared to any other nation, which unleashed one hundred years of Dutch naval, financial and artistic supremacy in the continent and the globe.
The First True Manufacturing Machine
The inventor's lumber mill, argues Dávila, was “humanity’s initial true industrial apparatus.” A wind turbine rotated a wheel. One component transformed its rotary movement into up-and-down motion for the saw. Another component changed that same rotary movement into a sideway’s movement feeding the timber to the cutter. A ratchet system shifted the log ahead a measured step each cycle.
“Each element seemed modest on its own. Corneliszoon’s genius was to integrate them in order that the machine acted within a precisely synchronized sequence, cutting on every descending motion while moving with each return motion. This constituted a remarkably clever use of fundamental parts.”
Which leads us to today’s puzzle. I’d like for you to reinvent one of the fundamental ideas behind Corneliszoon’s machine.
Round and Up
Construct a mechanism which converts rotary movement to vertical motion. You have these items only: A rotating disc. Two pins. Two bars. A “guide”, which is a tube or sleeve into which a single the bars will fit perfectly. (Assume it is possible to mount components on a stand, so that the components do not collapse.)
I’ll be back at 5pm UK with the solution.
Meanwhile, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, feel free to propose (non obvious) candidates as the world’s most impactful creation.
